NEW NORWAY, Alta. – The snow is gone and it will only be a couple of weeks before Ross and Pam Keller will seed another year’s crop.
As they have for the past few years, they’ll grow wheat, canola, barley and peas on their central Alberta farm.
They haven’t changed their plans because the snow left early this year.
They learned to conserve moisture on their sandy soil years ago by only disturbing the land at seeding time, using zero tillage on the farm that has been in the family for four generations.
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“I wanted to improve the soil quality and improve the moisture. What I’ve seen so far I like,” said Ross.
They grow canola and barley to make money. Peas improve the soil and wheat expands the rotation and allows them to use fall-applied herbicide.
Unless they get No. 1 wheat, they don’t expect to make money on their 225 acres planted to the crop.
“Wheat is the one we could actually lose money on,” said Ross.
Even though wheat prices are down, he needs to grow the crop to allow him to use Roundup in the fall. Next year he will grow peas on that land. Because he doesn’t cultivate, fall-applied herbicide is one of the few ways to control annual weeds in the peas.
Barring a disaster, Ross expects his barley to go malt as it has for the past five years. He believes one of the secrets to growing malt barley in a traditionally non-malt growing area is the new grain dryer.
Straight combining the barley before the end of August at a slightly high moisture and then drying it, has allowed him to grow a top-priced grain.
The family estimates it costs 21Ú2 cents a bushel to dry the grain.
“The dryer was cheaper than buying another combine,” said Pam, who works as a post-surgery nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital in nearby Camrose and also acts as a lactation consultant for new mothers.
“In hindsight it was probably one of our best investments,” she said.
“It’s a way of trying to control nature as much as we can,” added her husband.
Spread workload
For the first time they put in 50 acres of fall-seeded canola. The goal was to spread out the work, and avoid the crop blooming in the hot summer months or the yield-reducing sclerotinia season.
“Sclerotinia is a big problem. This gets away from the $27 acre cost of Benlate.”
But if the canola sprouted during an unusually warm November, it’s ruined.
“I’ll really be surprised if I don’t have to reseed it.”
Ross plans to make another attempt at fall-seeding this year with a new polymer-coated canola. If all goes according to plan he’ll plant winter wheat on the land fall-seeded to canola and slowly phase out hard red spring wheat.
Along with the low price of some grain, the couple expects the fertilizer bill to increase because of their decision to apply sulfur and copper as a long-term preventative measure.
Soil samples and crop symptoms showed extra nutrients were needed.
“We thought it was time to build up our soil a bit more,” said Ross of the decision to use Tiger 90, an elemental sulfur.
“We plan to put on 20 pounds every year on every field to build up the soil.”
This fall they hope a global positioning system and combine yield monitor will help them target fertilizer use.
“We have an idea of which parts of the field are marginal. This is a better way to figure it out,” said Pam.
Until the fields dry out and they can begin another farming season, the family is heading to British Columbia for one last snowmobiling trip. It’s Ross’ seventh trip of the season and the way the family spends time together.
